BirdingNZ.net

"A study published today in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology points to fossil bones as probably the oldest example of a relative of today's tropicbirds. ... The ancient bones were found in 60-million-year-old greensand deposits near Waipara ... This fossil shows that in the tropical early Paleocene period -- just after the event that caused the extinction of dinosaurs -- tropicbirds inhabited the waters surrounding the whole of Zealandia, the ancient sub-continent New Zealand was once part of."

News story; http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic ... d=11554659

This will be interesting as it is really old, close to the suggested time of divergence between Tropicbirds and Sun-bitterns. Curious to see what it might have looked like.

Ian

For all my grumbles about access to literature some people do make their work available and you can find this paper at the top of the list here - http://www.researchgate.net/profile/R_S ... blications. It's not quite the free and easy access I'd like but it helps feed the rat. Thanks Paul.

Ian

I have just come across mention of the Vegaviidae, a new family of very old fossil seabirds from the southern hemisphere Antarctica, South America and New Zealand. https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 017-1508-y - not the whole paper but have a look at the supplementary material, quite at lot of information and pictures there. The extant groups they are most related to are the ducks and screamers but that probably doesn't give much of a guide as to what they looked like.

The interesting thing is that this "tropicbird" bone may belong to this group and the authors are sure that the odd Australornis lovei discussed here viewtopic.php?t=3278 does so too. The link to the full paper doesn't show it any more but the stuff article still shows and it is, of course, here too http://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/lov ... ne-seabird.

Things were obviously quite different back then.

Ian

This in the NZ Herald today, mentions Vegavis:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic ... d=11931857

Thanks Michael

I followed up and found the research paper http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... /10/170975 There are some spectacular birds amongst those extinct families related to waterfowl and gamebirds.

Ian